Press Release: 2018 Karnataka Assembly Elections, Analysis of Criminal and Financial Background of Contesting Candidates

Dear Friends,

Karnataka Election Watch and Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) have analysed the self-sworn affidavits of 2560 out of 2655 candidates for the Karnataka 2018 Assembly Elections. There are 95 candidates who have not been analysed as either their affidavits were badly scanned or incomplete affidavits were available on the ECI and the CEO Karnataka websites. Their details are given below:

S.No	Party Name	Number of Candidates not analysed
1	Aam Aadmi Party	1
2	AIADMK	1
3	All India Mahila Empowerment Party	9
4	Ambedkar National Congress	2
5	Ambedkarite Party of India	1
6	Bhaarateeya Janashakthi Congress	1
7	Bharatiya Rashtriya Mahila Sarvodaya Congress	1
8	Bharatiya Republican Paksha	2
9	Bhartiya Bahujan Kranti Dal	1
10	Bhartiya Republican Party	1
11	Bhartiya Republican Party (Insan)	1
12	Dr. Ambedkar Peoples Party	1
13	Federal Congress of India	1
14	INC	2
15	Independent	52
16	Janahitha Paksha	1
17	JD(S)	2
18	JD(U)	3
19	Kannada Paksha	1
20	Karnataka Jantha Paksha	1
21	Karnataka Pragnyavantha Janatha Party	1
22	Pyramid Party of India	2
23	Republican Sena	1
24	Sarva Janata Party	1
25	SHS	4
26	Swaraj India	1
Grand Total		95

Table: Party Wise- Number of Candidates who have not been analysed

Criminal Background

Criteria for serious criminal cases

1. Offence for which maximum punishment is of 5 years or more.

2. If an offence is non-bailable

3. If it is an electoral offence (for eg. IPC 171E or bribery)

4. Offence related to loss to exchequer

5. Offences that are assault, murder, kidnap, rape related

6. Offences that are mentioned in Representation of the People Act (Section 8)

7. Offences under Prevention of Corruption Act

8. Crimes against women.

· Candidates with Criminal Cases: Out of the 2560 candidates analysed, 391(15%) candidates have declared criminal cases against themselves.

· Candidates with Serious Criminal Cases: 254 (10%) candidates have declared serious criminal cases against themselves.

· Candidates with cases related to murder: 4 candidates have declared case related to murder (Indian Penal Code Section-302) against themselves.

· Candidates with cases related to attempt to murder: 25 candidates have declared cases related to attempt to murder (Indian Penal Code Section-307) against themselves.

· Candidates with cases related to crime against women: 23 candidates have declared cases related to crime against women such as Assault or criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty (IPC Section-354); word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman (IPC Section -509) and cohabitation caused by man deceitfully including a belief of lawful marriage (IPC Section 493); Husband or relative of husband of a woman subjecting her to cruelty (IPC Section-498A) etc.

· Party wise Candidates with Criminal Cases: Among major parties, 83(37%) out of 224 candidates from BJP,59 (27%) out of 220 candidates analysed from INC, 41(21%) out of 199 candidates analysed from JD(S), 5(20%) out of 25 candidates analysed from JD(U), 5(19%) out of 27 candidates analysed from AAP and 108 (10%) out of 1090 independent candidates have declared criminal cases against themselves in their affidavits.

· Party wise Candidates with Serious Criminal Cases: Among major parties, 58(26%) out of 224 candidates from BJP,32 (15%) out of 220 candidates analysed from INC, 29(15%) out of 199 candidates analysed from JD(S), 3(12%) out of 25 candidates analysed from JD(U), 1(4%) out of 27 candidates analysed from AAP and 70 (6%) out of 1090 independent candidates have declared serious criminal cases including murder, attempt to murder, kidnapping etc. against themselves in their affidavits.

Figure 1: Party Wise Candidates with Criminal Cases

· Red Alert Constituency: There are 56(25%) red alert constituencies in the Karnataka Assembly Elections, 2018.

Red Alert constiuencies are the constituencies which have 3 or more candidates with declared criminal cases.

Financial Background

Figure 2: Share of Wealth among Candidates

· Share of wealth among candidates : The share of wealth amongst the candidates contesting in assembly elections of Karnataka is as follows:

Value of assets	No. of candidates	Percentage of candidates
Rs 5 crore and above	447	18%
Rs 2 crores to 5 crores	252	10%
Rs 50 lakhs to 2 crores	442	17%
Rs 10 lakhs to 50 lakhs	600	23%
less than Rs 10 lakhs	819	32%

Table 1: Share of wealth amongst contesting candidates

· Crorepati Candidates: Out of the 2560 candidates analysed, 883 (35%) are crorepatis.

· Party wise Crorepati Candidates: Among major parties, 208(93%) out of 224 candidates from BJP, 207 (94%) out of 220 candidates analysed from INC, 154(77%) out of 199 candidates analysed from JD(S), 13(52%) out of 25 candidates analysed from JD(U), 9(33%) out of 27 candidates analysed from AAP and 199 (18%) out of 1090 independent candidates have declared assets worth more than Rs. 1 crore.

Figure 3: Party Wise Crorepati Candidates

· Average assets: The average of assets per candidate contesting in the Karnataka Assembly Elections 2018 is Rs 7.54 crores.

· Party wise average assets: Among the major parties, the average assets per candidate for 224 BJP candidates is Rs 17.86 crores, 220 INC candidates analysed have average assets of Rs 38.75 crores, 199 JD(S) candidates analysed have average assets worth Rs 20.91 crores, and 1090 Independent candidates analysed have average assets of Rs. 1.58 crores.

· High asset candidates*: The top 3 candidates with highest assets contesting in the Karnataka 2018 Assembly Elections are given below:

S.No.	Name	District	Constituency	Party Name	Movable Assets (Rs)	Immovable Assets (Rs)	Total Assets (Rs)	PAN Given
1	Priyakrishna	B.B.M.P(SOUTH)	GOVINDARAJANAGAR	INC	8,60,43,87,250	1,60,10,00,000	10,20,53,87,250 1020 Crore+	Y
2	N Nagaraju (M.T.B)	BANGALORE RURAL	HOSAKOTE	INC	4,37,15,64,043	5,78,64,65,309	10,15,80,29,352 1015 Crore+	Y
3	D K Shivakumar	RAMANAGARAM	KANAKAPURA	INC	1,01,31,90,097	7,38,69,76,948	8,40,01,67,045 840 Crore+	Y

Table: Top three candidates with highest declared assets

· Zero assets Candidates: There are 17 candidates who have declared zero assets.

· Low asset candidates: The three candidates with lowest assets( excluding candidates with zero assets) are as follows:

S.No.	Name	District	Constituency	Party Name	Movable Assets (Rs)	Immovable Assets (Rs)	Total Assets (Rs)	PAN Given
1	Dilip Kumar	B.B.M.P(SOUTH)	BOMMANAHALLI	IND	1,000	0	1,000 1 Thou+	Y
2	M. Lakshmi	B.B.M.P(CENTRAL)	RAJAJINAGAR	Jai Vijaya Bharathi Party	2,000	0	2,000 2 Thou+	Y
3	Sreenivas S	MYSORE	KRISHNARAJA	IND	2,053	0	2,053 2 Thou+	Y

Table: Candidates with declared lowest assets

· Candidates with high liabilities: The top three candidates with highest liabilities are as given below:

S.No.	Name	District	Constituency	Party Name	Total Assets(Rs)	Liabilities (Rs)	Disputed liabilities (Rs)	PAN Given
1	Priyakrishna	B.B.M.P(SOUTH)	GOVINDARAJANAGAR	INC	10,20,53,87,250 1020 Crore+	# 8,02,74,82,214 802 Crore+	8,92,73,737 8 Crore+	Y
2	R Prabhakar Reddy	BANGALORE URBAN	BANGALORE SOUTH	JD(S)	2,27,25,77,671 227 Crore+	2,83,08,40,855 283 Crore+	0	Y
3	D K Shivakumar	RAMANAGARAM	KANAKAPURA	INC	8,40,01,67,045 840 Crore+	# 2,28,27,02,677 228 Crore+	5,80,12,561 5 Crore+	Y

Table: Top three candidates with high liabilities

· Undeclared PAN: A total of 309(12%) out of the 2650 candidates analysed have not declared their PAN details.

· Candidates with high income as declared in the ITR*: The details of top 3 candidates with high declared income are as given below:

S.No.	Name	Party	Constituency	District	Total Asset (Rs)	Self Source of Income	Spouse's Source of Income	The financial year for which the last income tax return has been filed by candidate	Total income shown by candidate in ITR (Self+Spouse+ Dependent) (Rs)	Self income shown by candidate in ITR (Rs)
1	N Nagaraju (M.T.B)	INC	HOSAKOTE	BANGALORE RURAL	10,15,80,29,352 1015 Crore+	Agriculture, House Property, Business & Other Sources	House Property & Other Sources	2016-2017	1,57,04,29,210 157 Crore+	1,04,41,26,570 104 Crore+
2	B.A.Basavaraja	INC	K.R. PURA	B.B.M.P(NORTH)	1,03,19,48,613 103 Crore+	Business	Husband's income	2016-2017	27,77,31,712 27 Crore+	27,77,31,712 27 Crore+
3	Mohamad Iqbal Hothur	JD(S)	BELLARY CITY	BELLARY	3,80,98,56,625 380 Crore+	Income from Salary, House Property, Business and Other Sources	Income from House Property, Business and Other Sources	2016-2017	24,96,99,810 24 Crore+	1,04,06,910 1 Crore+

Table: Candidates with high income as declared in ITR

*Total income includes income of self, spouse and dependents

· Sources of Income: 340 (13%) out of 2560 candidates have not declared their sources of income.

Other Background Details

· Education details of candidates: 1351 (53%) candidates have declared their educational qualification to be between 5^th pass and 12^th pass, while 981(38%) candidates have declared having an educational qualification of graduate or above. There are 52(2%) candidates who have declared themselves literate whereas 50(2%) are illiterate. 11 candidates have not given their educational qualification.

· Age details of candidates: One candidate has declared her age as 20 years.849 (33%) candidates have declared their age to be between 25 and 40 years while 1351(53%) candidates have declared their age to be between 41 and 60 years. 347(14%) candidates have declared their age to be between 61 and 80 years while 5 candidates have declared their age to be between above 80 years. 7 candidates have not given their age in their affidavits.